Category Archives: law of attraction

I have done a lot of writing about spam DMs or Direct Messages on Twitter recently and it may sound as if I don’t like to get DMs at all. Nothing could be further from the truth! I just adore DMs and prefer them to email, truth be told. Surprised? Don’t be!

The DM is a private conversation. It is ideal for people who have very little time and/or short attention span with its limited character set. A big “up side” to having limited characters is that it can force someone to get to the point, be concise and stay focused.

I used to write long, rambling emails. I used to enjoy reading them from others, too, but I simply do not have time for that luxury anymore. I spend most of my email time battling spam. It takes more time to sift email now and I do not enjoy sifting. It is my own fault since I should use a separate account for those purposes, but I digress.

TweetVisor makes me so happy, I could sing!

I always have TweetVisor up, so I can usually see DMs as they come in and reply instantly whenever I am online. TweetVisor shows everything all at once on one page, so I see my public @replies, too. This saves a TON of energy and effort, plus it allows me to be very speedy in my communications. Most of the time, an @reply on Twitter is great for both parties, lending exposure for both parties and the chance for new followers, but sometimes the conversation goes deeper or gets more involved or personal. How do I know when to take it to DM?

When you send your email address or other private information, take it to DM.

When you’re in an involved conversation and exchanged multiple messages that really concern no one else, take it to DM.

When it would be impossible to follow or jump into the conversation, take it to DM.

When you want to flirt for real, take it to DM. (Caution, you may get blocked! But that’s the same as real life, isn’t it?)

When the information you’d like to impart is very specifically for that one person, take it to DM.

When the subject is private information, take it to DM.

When sending a link someone requests that you have already tweeted within the past 4 hours, send it via DM to avoid being thrown out of search. (see my article about search for more information)

When you feel the need to use off-color language, in general, take it to DM.

If you feel the need to say something negative, keep it out of your stream and take it to DM. (Avoid)

When contacting customer support or Twitter support about a sensitive subject or complaint, don’t be rude and embarrass the company in an @reply, take it to DM.

DMs are like whispers...

Basically, an @reply or tweet is a shout out and a DM is a whisper. Whatever is said in DM is not general knowledge and should never be shared with someone else. You should never post the contents of a DM or tell someone else the contents of a DM. That is a trust violator that is not easily, if ever, overcome. Don’t overuse the DM, either, or your important messages may not be seen due to an onslaught of automatic DMs, frivolous flirtations and True Twit DM messages clogging the column. Master the art of the DM and it will simplify many areas of your electronic life!

Last night for Halloween, I “dressed up” my Twitter profile as Mae West and tweeted Mae’s quotes all night! If you have never done something like that, I HIGHLY recommend it for next year! It was a COMPLETE BLAST~!!!

Mae West was my "Twostume"

And I’ve been getting a lot of requests for custom wholesale – an oxymoron! LOL So have to

pull the plug on that one for now in small quantities since that is NOT wholesale, but

custom only – it should have a higher price!

And the doctors I ask about skin care are Dr. Perricone and Dr. Murad, mainly. Dr. François

Marceau did some testing on a rabbit’s ear in Canada – I am against animal testing for

cosmetics – and he is afraid DMAE causes fibroblasts – which are formed during the genysis

of collagen tissue, by the way, but hypothesizes that DMAE may cause thickening of the

skin. I have been using DMAE for 7 years and have nothing but fantastic things to say! Of

course I am not documented, so I am documenting that fact today! The article:

According to Twitter, “Blocking someone instead of removing them means that not only do you not want to follow them, but you want to deny them the ability to follow or reply to you.”

Thanks to my dear friend, @williger and his blog, I now know the Twitter community I belong to is “Reciprocal”. Think of it almost as a political party, yet all types of political philosophies exist within the Reciprocals. The main thing that holds us together is our undying belief that all things should ideally “even out”. We’re the “even Stevens” of Twitter. We prefer when people follow us back so the lines of communication are open. And, yes, we like to follow and be followed by lots of people! It keeps Twitter continually diverse and interesting beyond any dream! No, it’s not bad on the ego, either, or for business or social standing or SEO rankings or whatever each individual may hold as a goal.

You will also get the most interactivity from us in @replies and responses to your tweets. Reciprocals hold fast to the belief that all tweets and tweeters are created equal. You will even find the occasional celebrity in our midst: @AlRoker @Alyssa_Milano @Deepak_Chopra @SuzeOrmanShow @QBKILLA (Warren Sapp). These celebs may not always follow back, (one of the Reciprocals’ main binding traits), but they DO interact and talk with their tweeps which is much more important!

However, “all things being equal” goes both ways, just as in the Law of Attraction. Whether good, bad or in between, like attracts like in this world, so it should really come as no surprise that the same would hold true with blocking other Twitter accounts.

Somewhere along the line I felt encouraged to block accounts that I believed were set up for porn or spam. Whether the encouragement came from an outside app, Twitter itself or my own logic, it was there. I felt I was “doing my part to control spam”, a phrase so ingrained, I can’t believe it is part of my own machination. I began to block those accounts and recently, was made very aware of that what I was doing was also being done “reciprocally” to me.

One of my favorite tweeps sent me a DM (direct message) about a site designed to separate spammers from real people, or “Bot or Not?” called TwitBlock.org His message was of an urgent nature. “You must do something about this!” My Twitter account had been blocked by 10 others! 10, yes TEN~! I was MORTIFIED to learn this! I had to do something, but what could I do? I went into a slight panic and started checking my friends who are most “like me” to see if I was alone and I was alone, until the next day~! I checked Friend A’s and Friend B’s accounts. Friend B had 6 blocking, while Friend A had 1. The numbers changed again by the next day!

Friend A – Blocked by 3 TwitBlock usersThat’s a pretty strong indication that this account is a nuisance.
So 3 people of 34,000 have blocked Friend A and that makes her a NUISANCE? No sirree, Bob!

Friend B – Blocked by 9 TwitBlock usersThat’s a pretty strong indication that this account is a nuisance.
Friend B a nuisance? Um, I don’t THINK so! Friend B is NOTHING but Love & Light, spreading joy from one corner of the twitterverse to the next~! She also interacts with her tweeps! A nuisance? I think NOT!

@ModelSupplies – Blocked by 17 TwitBlock usersThat’s a pretty strong indication that this account is a nuisance.

Perhaps I am a nuisance. I should seek these people out and try to make amends! How can I find out WHO blocked me? What did I DO to make them block me? How can I change my behavior if I do not know what I have done wrong? How very depressing and powerless this knowledge can leave you! I am in search of an application that will reveal to me those who are blocking me, so I started with Twitter.

But how can all of these numbers have the same recommendation? How is 3, 9 and 17 in the same category? I began to wonder if this site is not its own nuisance. I can see the value in finding accounts that are up in the thousands, but what then? Block it? So that it can block you in all its spamminess? What if there are armies of people looking to destroy a certain account and just blocking feverishly? This all makes me uneasy and wreaks havoc in my lovely Twitter ecosystem. I have personally decided that I do not like this TwitBlocking site and advise against it. I think blocking accounts that are created for the purpose of spamming is still a pretty good idea, but I wanted to explore further…

When you Twitter search “Blocking me” you get a wide array of accounts with an even wider array of reasons for blocking people. Some of the reasons were purely that they were new accounts and did not know the person following them, so that person would be blocked! Blocked for being neighborly? Kicked out of the nest? Who ever heard of such a thing? This is a new Twitter phenomenon for me. I was ready to accept that my reciprocal community was likely “blocking me back”. Nevermind that those accounts are legitimate spam accounts, investigated by me personally and hand blocked. Did you also know there are applications that will block in bulk? That’s a pretty risky action to take, given human nature is to block someone who blocks you.

I had the impulse, gut reaction to protect myself from these people, especially the newbies who are blocking because they have no concept of Twitter yet formed. In my world, this is very similar to a neutral or negative feedback on eBay or Etsy. On eBay, you would take the proactive position and block a buyer who looks as if they may leave less than positive feedback, thereby minimizing risk to your account and business. Twitter is not so different. We all have the instinct to protect ourselves. Some even sacrifice getting followers and networking to have protected updates.

Now I have checked again today, August 19, 2009. Today, those numbers have changed!

These numbers are climbing way too fast signifying a trend. While I do not want to be someone who should be blocked, I wish I never heard of the TwitBlock website. I feel like I will visit it a few times every day, obsessively destroying my spirit for the moment. I am going to remove my wonderful friends’ names from this article so they do not have to feel the way I feel right now. I have decided to unblock all the accounts I have blocked –the true spam and porn accounts, because of the possibility of reciprocal blocking. I am not the “Twitter police”. I do not know where I got the idea that this was my civic duty or that it helped cut down on spam, but I no longer believe that my blocking makes a difference to Twitter. Hopefully some will reciprocate the unblocking…

Here’s a choice side note. Verified accounts are “exempt from spamhood” on this site, however, it still tells how many people have blocked the account! So, those of you wondering about @GuyKawasaki’s account or other high profile accounts can still be nosy. Verified accounts are still subject to snooping.
Let’s face it. Twitter is a fairly elitist community, usually in positive ways. Don’t expect it to be fair, but it is also a democratic setup based on choices. Twitter is aware of the TwitBlock site. The founders and friends of the founders of Twitter use it in playful banter.